this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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I'd like to think that he grew up and is widely embarrassed for what he's done now.
He pretty much did make a website for the moden neo-nazi movement, along with gamergate, and inspiring another website that made Q-anon, something that certain members of congress believe now.
I don't know if these thing would or would not exist without this website. All I know is that it would have been less pronounced because of it.
One of the reasons 8chan was created, was that moot banned the gamergate crap from 4chan.
Yeah to me it seems very clear that 4chan is a net negative on the society. We all would have been better off if it wasn't created and I say that as someone who did find value there in the early days (had a decent programming community)
All social media is a net negative on society. Twitter has been far, far worse because it has a false legitimacy given to it by mainstream media, the much, much larger user base and terrible, terrible people using it as their soapbox.
I disagree with this very western take. Social media is huge and connects billions of people that otherwise would be disconnect. It also allowed to rise of many net positive liberal ideas especially in the eveloping countries and the incredible economical stimulation is rarely talked about.
People forget how bad the world was before internet. Sure it raises some issues but also solved much more.
Internet =/= social media.
We had the spreading of positive, liberal ideas before social media was commodifying all human interactions and the corporations weren't able to influence individuals with forums, personal websites and IRC. Hell, even AIM and ICQ were better then what we have now.
If I turn off my ad blockers, I will see conservative ads, not because that's what I want to see, but because that's what the corporations want me to see.
I'm not sure if they're all that different. Early forums were very much similar to Facebook walls etc. Irc even had bot powered gamed and complex systems like user verification etc.
There's also the issue of scale. I don't see any barriers or solutions in alternative network types like forums of irc that would be more resistant to social media issues
No. Forums weren't anything like facebook or twitter. You had to choose to go onto forums and find the info you wanted. Now, you're socially expected to have a facebook and twitter account and be subject to whatever viral trend the corporations decide to let you see.
Once upon a time, if you wanted to see neo-nazi shit, you have to learn about Stormfront from some crazy guy at a bar or some recruiter before they get kicked out of a punk show. Now, it's delivered right to you and your grandmother first thing in the morning.
This one time I had a question that was so stupid, that website was the only place it could be asked.
I got an answer.
And you call it a net negative?! :p (heh yeah sounds very true)
PS: for the record, the topic was completely unimportant and irrelevant to anything anyone should care about, and there was nothing illegal or even rude about it
"Can I use a toilet brush to brush my teeth and not get rotting teeth ???"
There is a green text about how some eccentric thought could derail someone's entire life by finding other eccentric people on the internet.
https://www.reddit.com/r/4chan/comments/5ofih3/beforeafter_the_internet/
before the internet
After internet
I think 4chan sadly always was kind of a mirror of society